Gears Keep Turning
by OroginalBoondocks
Summary: Thought id take a shot at one of my favorite gaming couples, Anya and Marcus. hope you all enjoy! Rated M for language, violence, and future content
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer Time: I DO NOT own any of this

**Location: Porra, Vasgar**

**Time: 8 A.M**

**20 A.E.**

Trying his best to sit up without rocking the bed like he usually did, Marcus reached over turning the alarm clock off before it could buzz. Sliding off the bed it made a loud creak as he sighed one of his trade mark sighs. "Shit."

"Marcus, why are you up so early?" Anya had woken up even though Marcus had tried to prevent it so his wife could sleep. " Couldn't sleep, I was trying to let you though." He checked the time before walking around the bed to their closet. "Go back to sleep, you don't need to be up." Marcus knew telling Anya what to do was an immediate failure but he still tried.

"No it's fine, im up anyways." Marcus sighed and pulled the closet door open, as it shook abit on the track. In the 5 years after his father's death and the events that followed it, what was left fo the COG and stranded had moved to find residence in Porra. Most of the COG had rebuilt a previous resort for wealthier people and had taken it has their home.

Through a combination of Hoffman practically forcing it on them and prodding from the other Gears, Anya and Marcus were married not too long after the re-construction of Porra had begun. Marcus knew they would have eventually, and he would never admit it to anyone, but he was glad Hoffman had done it.

"Have you heard anything about the farmlands outside of Porra?" Anya had already gotten out of bed and was making her way to the bathroom, undressing as she went. "Bernie said the Stranded are making some head-way on it, should be growing crops in a week or so." "Good, it will give those idiots something to do besides harass whats left of our limited soldiers."

When Anya was in the bathroom and ahd closed the door, Marcus pushed back the rest of the door to reveal his Lancer. He let out a long sigh looking at it before grabbing a shirt and his heavy boots from the bottom of the closet. While he pulled on his armor, the radio in his ear went off. "Hey Marcus you awake baby? Hoffman needs you down in the lobby." That was Cole's voice, of course he would be awake this damn early too Marcus thought.

"Thanks Gus, why the hell are you up so early?" "I'm always up this early, you guys never see me because you're all sleeping the day away." Cole's heavy laughter filled Marcus's ear as he stood up knocking on the bathroom door. "I'm going to the lobby, Hoffman called." He didn't wait for her response as he headed out the door of their apartment, but not before grabbing his Lancer from the closet. Some habit's die hard, but Marcus was sure this one was immortal.

When he reached the lobby Hoffman was waiting for him, and to Marcus's surprise no one else had shown up. "Hoffman." Marcus gave a slight nod, which to everyone was his most polite way of saying hello. "Marcus." Hoffman did the same.

"So what's so important that you had to drag my ass out of bed this early?" Hoffman chuckled shaking his head. 'Marcus we both know you don't sleep." He hated to admit it, but even after all this time, Marcus still couldn't get five damn minutes of sleep without thinking about his father or Dom.

"Wheres Anya at? She usually follows you around day and night now." "She's still upstairs, back to why im here Hoffman." Hoffman nodded and started to walk towards the door with Marcus following. "Last night we got word from the Stranded farmers that something was roaming around the area, trying to dig up the crops."

"Shit. Did they get a good look?" "No, but I know what your thinking, no glowies or Locust this time, probably some damn animals, but we still need to figure it out, we can't lose the farms before they even get a chance to start up." Marcus grunted and pressed his finger to the radio that never left his ear. "Cole you still there?" "Yeah baby im still here, just hangin out with the little one's outside." Marcus could hear the kids in the background laughing, most likely hanging onto one of Cole's massive boots.

"See if you can pry Baird away from Sam for two fucking minutes and meet me at the front gates to the city, we need to head out to the farms." Marcus heard the kids disapproving as Cole told them to run off back home. "No problem i'll meet you there." Marcus sighed and looked at Hoffman before turning his radio on again. "Gus...bring your Lancer, same thing goes for Baird."

He didn't hear a response from Cole until he met with him and Baird at the gates where one of the Armadillos was waiting. Cole and Baird were arguing about something as Hoffman and Marcus climbed onto the Armadillo. "Lovers quarrel?" Baird gave Marcus an annoyed look as he got on with Cole and they took off for the farms. "Cole thinks he's funny, the son of a bitch just bursts into my apartment, practically dragging me out by my damn hair."

Marcus looked to Cole. "They were having sex weren't they?" Cole just busted up laughing as Baird looked away, a tinge of red painting his face. "Oh come on Damon, at the rate you two are goin, your gonna repopulate the entire planet yourselves." Even that got the tiniest chuckle from Marcus as Baird cursed out Cole for the entire trip to the Stranded farms.

When they reached the farms, the Stranded were already approaching the Armadillo, asking Marcus one-hundred different questions at a time about what was trying to attack the farms."Shit." He hopped down from the vehicle as the Stranded backed away from him but still kept talking. "Alright one at a damn time." He pointed to one of the farmers. "You, talk."

The Stranded farmer looked annoyed at Marcus's tone but shrugged it off. "Last night something came after our live stock, we scared it off but it came back three more times in the same night."

"Show us where it came from." Marcus and the others followed the farmer up past the animal pens and to the tree line. He could already spot big tracks from the lower hillside. The grip on his Lancer tightened out of instinct, he half expected to be jumped by a pack of whatever it was that attacked the farm.

The farmer pointed into the woods. "Go in and find that thing, kill it now before it comes back." Marcus ignored the farmer and pressed a finger to his radio. "Hoffman, we found tracks." Hoffman had stayed down at the farms to try and talk some more information out of the farmers. After a minute he replied back. "The farmers all have the same story. Where are the tracks."

"They start right at the woods and follow a path down to the animals pens." "See any signs of them still being around?" "No, they probably don't come out during the day." Marcus waited another minute before hearing back again. "I'll send a King Raven over the area to scout the woods, alto of the trees are dead so we should be able to see the forest floor."

With that taken care of they all headed back down to the farm, as they reached the hill they all heard a loud scream come from the pens, which sent them all running, Lancers ready, towards the pens.

When they stopped, they could see a few women huddled around something on the ground. Cole eased them aside then bent down to look at what was on the ground. "Oh damn, Marcus come look at this." Marcus knelt down next to Cole and looked at what he had seen. It was the corpse of one of the goats, but it had been completely mangled and gutted, it's innards spread all around the body.

"Whatever did this wasn't looking for food, it just wanted to kill." Cole nodded in agreement with Marcus as Baird stepped up behind them." What the fuck is that thing? It looks like something Bernie would eat."

"Come on, lets get back to the city and wait until the Raven gets back." Marcus stood up and got onto the Armadillo with the others as it took them back inside the gates. When they stopped again they got off and headed for the hotel which also served as the command center on the lower floors.

Anya and Bernie were waiting at the front door as Bernie looked to Marcus. "Did you guy's find anything, or is it just a bunch of paranoid Stranded bitching again?" Marcus ignored her question as he followed Anya inside so Baird decided to answer for him. "No granny they actually had something to bitch about this some, we found some big ass animal tracks, and a goat that looked like a Locust fucked it inside out."

She sighed and looked over-head as a King Raven soared over the wall towards the woods. "That's just what we need, one more problem after another." Cole patted her on the shoulder and smiled. "Don't worry Boomer-Lady there ain't a damn thing on this planet we cant get rid of with abit of COG muscle." Baird smirked and looked at Bernie. "Either that or you could just bitch the things to death Granny." She looked at Baird and scowled. "I thought that was Sam's job when you two aren't busy humping." Cole started laughing and went inside with Bernie as Baird followed behind red-faced again.

While they waited to hear back from the Raven patrol Marcus and Anya had gone back to their apartment on the upper levels of the hotel. After going inside Marcus tossed his Lancer onto the bed and sighed going outside onto the old stone balcony attached to the apartment with Anya following him out.

"Marcus, whats wrong?" "Shit. I can't believe this, god damnit Anya I thought we were finally done with this crap." She watched his expression change to anger more than anything as she leaned against him. "Were trying to rebuild an entire world Marcus, things like this are gonna happen. "There not supposed to, my father and Dom gave their lives up to end this shit." Anya could feel him tense up when he mentioned his father and Dom.

"I know Marcus, believe me no one will forget what they did, but this isn't the Locust or the Lambent, this is something different." "I'd sooner drink a barrel of imulsion than let this shit happen." Anya couldn't believe Marcus, in all the years she knew him, she didn't think it was possible for him to vocalize his thoughts this much, especially to her.

But she knew it was only because his mind was focused so intensely on the death of his father and his best friend. "Don't worry, we've faced a lot bigger things then some damn animals." Marcus sighed and went back inside sitting on the bed. Anya sat behind him and draped her arms on his massive shoulders. He could feel himself relax a bit at her touch, but his mind was still clouded.

They spent a few minutes in silence together, which Marcus enjoyed alto more than he would ever admit, until a voice in his ear snapped him back to reality. "KR-22 to Fenix." Marcus pressed his finger tot he radio. "Go ahead KR-22."

"No sight of anything so far, there's a lot more tree coverage than we thought." "Shit. Do you see any signs of recent activity?" "Sorry sir no, we're heading back into the city now." He let go of the button as his whole body tensed up again. Anya felt the change and sighed leaning closer to him. "They didn't find anything?" He just grunted which she knew meant he was disappointed.

"We'll have to send a few guards out to the farms tonight, whatever those things are there's no doubt they'll be back." Anya tensed up as well, but Marcus reached up to take her hand. "Don't worry, Hoffman wouldn't let me leave if I tried. "Anya smiled knowing that was his way of saying he wouldn't go.

Ever since the COG had settled in this city, Marcus had made every effort to not leave Anya alone for too long. After losing too many people to the Locust and Lambent, he wasn't about to lose her, not to anyone or anything. She knew it even though he had never said it, Anya had always been skilled at reading Marcus, without him uttering a single word.

She checked the time then looked back to him. "What do we do now? The Raven didn't find anything." "We wait. Those things will come back, but this time they won't be escaping." She could hear the malice in his voice that used to be reserved for Grubs and Lambent. "Marcus whats going on with you, there just animals not Locust. Its not like were waging another war."

"You're wrong Anya, we are fighting a war, a war to get back our damn planet, and we don't need some damn animals giving us problems and getting in the way, not when were actually getting back on our feet."

She couldn't think of anything else to say as she leaned against their headboard in defeat. After a few minutes she saw him shift a bit and turn his head. "Sorry, it's been awhile since I thought about everything." She nodded as a small smile crept onto her face, relieved that he had managed to calm down.

"Marcus you've talked more this week alone than you have in what fifteen years? Im just happy you finally opened that damn steel trap you call a memory." That got a small chuckle or at least a grunt from him as he sat up more.

"Don't push it, if it weren't for this situation it might have taken longer." Anya just laughed and sat up nudging him. "Act that way all you want Marcus i've known for years whats hiding under those COG tags."

He just grunted again and looked at her. "Do you and Sam think this shit up before you come home to spring it on Baird and me?" She just smirked and got up grabbing one of the hand held radios and calling for the King Raven that was scoping the forest.

"KR-22 have you returned yet?" "No Ma'am, we decided to take a second sweep of the forest." Anya looked to Marcus before responding. "Did your second search turn up anything?" "Yes Ma'am we did find something. Anya looked a bit annoyed. "Well? What the hell did you find?" There was a slight pause. "Is Fenix with you?" He shook his head as she answered. "No, he's with Hoffman, why?" "We found the animals ma'am, but theres a problem, they were drinking imulsion..."

Anya's eyes widen as she heard the pilot spit out the words. "Ok, thanks, get back to base after marking the spot, don't let this info get out." She turned off the radio and looked at Marcus who's fists were bawled up as he glared out the window towards the forest. "Shit."


	2. Chapter 2

"What the fuck do you mean Imulsion? There shouldn't be any Imulsion left on all of Sera!" Anya felt a little frightened seeing Marcus so fired up. She knew it was because his father had died to save Sera from the Imulsion itself.

Marcus's voice on the radio must have scared the hell out of who ever was driving because it took a few minutes to respond. "It's true Sergeant Fenix, we cant explain it, but that is one hundred percent Imulsion." Marcus could feel every cell in his body lighting on fire with rage. "Get here now and take me to the Imulsion, now."

A few minutes later Marcus loaded onto the King Raven with Anya and Baird who had caught word from them as they were taken towards the forest again. Anya squeezed Marcus's massive hand trying to keep him calm but that was a complete waste of energy. As far as he was concerned he was going to find that Imulsion and get rid of it.

When they landed Marcus almost shoved Baird right onto his ass, getting out of the Raven. "Hey what the fuck?! The damn Imulsion isn't going anywhere." Baird got up and followed Anya to where Marcus had stopped. They joined him at staring dumbstruck at a pool of Imulsion in the ground.

None of them wanted to believe it, there wasn't supposed to be any Imulsion left but here it was, staring them all dead in the face.

"Marcus what the hell is this? Your dads weapons was supposed to get rid of this shit!" Marcus stared into the pool in dis-belief. Baird was right, Marcus had watched his dad disappear along with the last of the Imulsion on Sera, or so he thought.

Anya waited beside Marcus before something caught her eye on the other end of the pool and walked over to it. "Marcus, Baird, come here quick." They both jogged to the other side and looked down to see what Anya had.

At her feet were one of the animals they thought to be terrorizing the farmers. Except it was skinny, like it had been starved to death, and Imulsion caked it's jaw. Baird grabbed a small handsaw from his leg pocket and leaned down to cut off one of the canine's in it's mouth. "Look at this shit, it's like the teeth are coated in glowing wax."

"Let's get a few more people out here, we need to get some of this Imulsion and find out how in the fuck it survived." Anya and Baird both knew by his tone of voice that meant Marcus was hell bent on this.

A second King Raven landed with a few scientists who collected some Imulsion in large clear glass canisters and began shipping it back to the base as fast as they could while Marcus, Anya, and Baird returned waiting for the scientists to start researching it.

The whole time Marcus sat behind them, waiting for an answer, Anya could see his knuckles turning pure white, the way he was gripping his fathers COG tags hiding inside his enormous palm. She was sure he was going to completely lose it any moment, but then she thought about who this was, if Marcus didn't lose it the day Dom died, then he wouldn't lose it now, she hoped.

Every time the scientists even made the slightest motion to turn around Marcus twitched expecting an answer. After about an hour one of them turend to look at Marcus and motioned him to step up. He got out of his chair, Anya right behind him, and stood next to the woman who looked tiny compared to him. "Sergeant Fenix we've put the Imulsion through a few tests, and it's definitely the real deal, but it has a different cell structure than the Imulsion we mined from Sera's caves. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Something about this Imulsion is different, and whatever it is, it aloud it to survive your fathers weapons when it went off, destroying all other Imulsion sources on Sera."

Marcus started at the beaker of glowing fuel and grunted." How did it happen then? What changed it?"

"Were not completely sure yet, someone had to have tampered with it to change it this much. It wouldn't have been the COG, it served us just fine as fuel." Marcus tried to think a million thought at once, wondering who or what would be able to get a hold of, and experiment with Imulsion.

"Shit. I'm going to find Hoffman." He walked out of the laboratory and towards the hotel, and Hoffman's office. Anya caught up to him grabbing his hand. "Marcus wait, what the hell do you think Hoffman will know."

He kept walking, dragging her along with him. 'Something, maybe not a damn thing." They headed inside and went straight for Hoffman's office, lucky for them he was still there.

Hoffman turned around in his chair looking up at Marcus, the look on his face made Hoffman both worry and filled him with questions. "You've heard about the Imulsion." Hoffman nodded before standing up. "Everyone has by now."

"If you know anything Hoffman tell me now." Marcus stared him in the eyes, his own spelling anger and vengeance. "Before you pop a god damn blood vessel, I don't know anything about it." Marcus sighed, that wasn't what he wanted to hear.

"Fine forget that for now, what the hell do we do with it?" All three of them sat down near the desk. "That's a good question, but for now we keep it inside these walls, if those Stranded find out we have Imulsion, all hell is gonna break loose."

"That may happen either way, those damn animals were drinking the shit. Im pretty sure they were some kind of wolf, but whatever they are, the Imulsion is taking it's toll on them, Anya found oen rotting to death by the pool."

Hoffman sat for a few minutes in silence thinking everything over. "Ok, no time to dick around. I don't want a single Stranded out at night, and as soon as the sun goes down, I want COG stationed near that forest."

"Tell a team to drain that pool too, we cant have more Lambent running around. Even if they are just wolves." "Maybe they wont last that long, Anya you found a dead one?"

Anya finally looked up after staring at Marcus for so long. "Yes, it was rotting and decaying like roadkill. No signs of a fight like the others had killed it, but the flesh was peeling away, the only thing intact were it's teeth."

Marcus pulled out the tooth Baird had sliced off and tossed it to Hoffman who looked over it. "Feels like it's covered in wax or something." He tossed it back to Marcus who nodded and put it away again. Hoffman took the next few minutes to issue out orders to a pump crew and any available COG about tonight's plan.

When he finished he turned back to the Fenix couple who were still waiting. "best thing we can do is wait for the scientists to come up with a better answer to this. Nothing for us to shoot at until the sun goes down so for now you two go be a happily married couple somewhere else.

"Yeah, will do." The sarcasm rolled out of their mouths as Anya and Marcus left Hoffman's office and went to the bar which had been built on the main floor by Dizzy. A lot of the COG were already there eating and drinking as they both grabbed seats at an empty table.

Dizzy quickly brought them some of his personal moon-shine and smiled. "Well shit, I've been waiting for you two to come in here as a couple." Marcus rolled his eyes as Dizzy laughed pouring them glasses. "Well come on give it a try, made this batch just an hour ago." They drank at the same time, Anya grimaced and set her glass down. "Dizzy this is uh..." Marcus cut her off setting his glass down too." It tastes like cat piss Dizzy."

Anya expected him to be angry but Dizzy just busted up laughing. "hey that's an improvement, Baird said it tasted like rat shit earlier." He left the bottle behind as Marcus continued to drink it, Anya watching in disgust.

"Marcus how can you drink that?" He just shrugged and set the half empty bottle aside. "I've had Locust blood spattered in my face for years, this is like drinking damn wine compared to the taste of that." She sighed and nodded leaning back and looking around the bar.

They stayed for another fifteen minutes before she saw Sam and Baird, she waved them down. Sam sat beside Anya and Baird beside Marcus as he looked at the bottle. "Dizzy's rat shit?" Marcus shook his head. "Cat piss flavored this time."

Baird shrugged and tried a swig, giving some to Sam. "Not bad I guess, better than yesterdays, he must have found some better ingredients hiding somewhere." Anya looked to Sam. 'So did you hear about the Imulsion?"

She chuckled and leaned back. "Are you kidding me? Baird's been talking my damn ear off all day about it, I swear he has some kind of fetish for Imulsion and computers." "Hey don't blame me for knowing class when I see it, maybe you should take a lesson or two from my computer upstairs about class" He smirked at Sam who took a swing, clipping his forehead.

"Damn woman! It was a joke!." She leaned back and huffed, noticing Marcus hadn't moved or said a word this entire time except "Cat piss flavored this time".

"Hey, earth to Marcus, you ok over there?" He looked up from his hand to meet Sam's stare, she immediately regretted it, seeing the death stare he was giving her.

"Never mind, forget I said anything." he just nodded and went back to looking at his hands. Anya pointed to the COG tags in his hand, Sam looked closer and her expression changed to sympathy. She could see the name Adam Fenix printed on one side.

"Hey can I have that tooth back? Bernie smith want it to put with her cat tooth collection." Marcus gave the tooth to Baird who pocketed it himself. Sam raised an eyebrow looking at Anya. "Does Mataki seriously collect the teeth from those things?" Baird chuckled. "Hey she ate the poor things at one point, im sure she had other hobbies."

Baird and Sam argued for another few minutes before Marcus looked up at Baird. "Are you gonna be out in the woods tonight?" "Hell no, Hoffman stuck me in the labs with the geek squad to look at the Imulsion." Marcus grunted and looked at Sam. "Nope, im not goin either, besides I cant let this idiot out of my sight, I might catch him cheating on me with that can of Imulsion."

Anya and Sam both laughed as Baird just looked away before getting up from the table. "I'd love to stay and 'gossip' all day but i've got shit to do." He walked away not waiting for Sam who had just stood up." Im gonna make sure he gets that tooth to Bernie."

Anya nodded and waved to Sam as she darted out the doors towards Baird. "How those two haven't killed each other yet is a damn mystery." Marcus nodded looking up again at her. "Sad part is, she's probably right, he'd dump her for a good computer at the first glance." Anya smiled, happy Marcus was seeming to find some sense of humor now, which meant he was thinking less about the Imulsion problem, and his father.

"Come on let's head to our apartment, no sense sitting here all day waiting for the sun to go down." Marcus sighed and followed Anya up the stairs and into their apartment. She closed the door and began taking off her armor, and flopped down onto their bed.

She noticed Marcus had put his Lancer away but sat down, still in his armor. "Ya know, you don't need that stuff in here, besides it takes up too much room." He just grunted and pulled off the gauntlets and chest plate, but left the leggings and boots on.

"Maybe not, old habits die hard Anya." She sat up and wrapped her arms loosely around his neck. "Yeah I know, but come on, can;t we just relax for a few hours? You need to rest anyways, like Hoffman said there's not much we can do until the scientists come up with something."

After a few minutes Marcus decided to shed the rest of his bulky armor and laid down on the bed with Anya who got closer to him. He put on arm out to wrap around her as he let out a huge sigh.

"I cant believe your head hasn't popped clean off your shoulders from all this stress Marcus." A very small smirk played on his lips as he stared at the ceiling. "Tell ay the truth, pretty sure your the one keeping it on my shoulders."

Anya looked at him a little confused. "Is that you talking, or the stress?" He closed his eyes slowly. "neither, its fear."

She couldn't believe what he just said, Marcus hadn't shown fear, ever. Anya wasn't totally sure he knew what fear was supposed to be. "Fear? Im sorry where the hell did my husband go?" Marcus let out a small chuckle turning his head and opening his eyes.

"Yeah I know, it's weird. But between anger, hate, stress, fear is the only thing I had left." "Your not joking are you?" he shook his head. "No im not. It's not full blown fear like a child seeing a Locust in their nightmares, just fear that this shit just isn't going to stop, no matter what we do about it."

"Don't worry Marcus, once we figure out whats up with the Imulsion, we can just destroy it and the problem will have never existed." He sighed closing his eyes again. "I hope your right Anya, im getting real tired of surprises."

Anya went to say something in response but stopped when she heard snoring, which was coming from Marcus. She smiled and sat up looking down at him. He was completely knocked out so she decided to grab a shower while he slept. When she was done, she expected Marcus to be awake already but coming out of the bathroom, she saw he was still asleep.

When she was done getting dressed she joined him on the bed again. The movement must have disturbed him because he opened his eyes slowly and grunted. "Shit. How long was I asleep?" "Only half an hour, not even that I think." He sat up and stretched his arms which had managed to already stiffen up.

Cracking his knuckles next, he looked at her soaked hair. "What did you do go swimming?" She just smirked and nudged his side. "No I got a shower, you should do the same before we end up being in those woods for who knows how long if they find something else."

Marcus got off the bed and headed for the bathroom, closing the door behind him. After getting out of his clothes he stood under the hot water for a few minutes, trying to collect everything that he had heard today.

When he finished, he dried off and pulled on a fresh pair of clothes before coming out, not seeing Anya. For a split second he worried but then caught the sent of meat being cooked as he walked off towards their kitchen. He smirked at the site of Anya cooking up something for them. "Since when the hell did you start playing house wife?"

Anya laughed and set aside a plate for him. "Right after you joined the neighborhood watch with Baird and Cole and started drinking beer while watching Thrash ball every weekend."

Marcus chuckled and sat down, waiting for her to sit as well. "You need to be around Sam less, the whole smart-ass thing doesn't work for you."

"Shut up and eat." She smirked back before sitting down and eating with him. When eh was done he looked at her and sighed. " What?"

"Nothing, just waiting for a Locust to burst through that wall and ruin this." Anya turned and made a mock ticking sound before stopping." Well sorry, doesn't look like your gonna get out of it this time."

Marcus actually enjoyed having this time with Anya, it was the first time in weeks that they could spend this much time together without being called out to Hoffman, or just sleeping. Since the Locust had been destroyed, his life with Anya seemed to be steadily getting easier. He hoped it would stay that way, but with the Imulsion turning up he wasn't so sure now.

When the sun had finally gone down, the COG teams were sent to the forest edge, completely decked out with weapons, to guard against both Stranded and the wolves alike. Marcus watched two King Ravens leave for the Imulsion pit as well to drain it out.

He already knew the answer when eh asked if anything else had been found out about the Imulsion, but it didn't stop him from asking over the radio every half hour.

Anya was able to coax him into the bad again to sit with Cole, Baird, and Sam who were all eating and drinking. Cole slapped Marcus on the back when he sat down. "Hey baby how you doin with all this Imulsion talk?" Marcus sat down and sighed. "Im fine Gus."

Cole chuckled and slapped a glass of moon shine down in front of Marcus. "have a drink and forget about it, those scientists will figure all this shit out then can get back to the good stuff like fixing the city." Marcus nodded with a smile, no matter how shitty he felt Anya and Cole were the only eons who could make him feel even the slightest bit better.

A few glasses of moon shine later, their waiting finally ended as someone called for Marcus. He pressed his finger to the radio. "Sergeant Fenix here, find anything yet?" 'yes sergeant, are you able to come to the lab?"

"Yeah, on my way." Marcus headed straight for the laboratory, Anya right on his heels. When he arrived the woman who had talked to him earlier in the day called him over. "After looking at it a few more times, we were finally able to find the change in the Imulsion. Whoever manipulated it, made it so it could be absorbed by humans, and act like blood cells, so your fathers weapon would be able to pick out the difference between normal human blood cells and the Imulsion hiding inside."

"Ok, so what the fuck does that tell me?" "Well that tells us that it had to be someone in the COG that did this, were the only ones with the technology to do this kind of stuff."

Marcus slowly began to come to a realization but he refused to believe it. "Maybe some kind of mole got into the COG or something and used our technology to make this Imulsion but we cant figure out why anyone would want to purposely infect humans with Imulsion."

"Not humans, just one human." As if on Que, Marcus's radio buzzed as he answered it. "Sergeant Fenix we've got good news, and some seriously bad news."

"Good news first." "The good news is we got all of the Imulsion in our tanks without those damn wolves coming after us in the dark." "Whats the bad news." "We'll show you once were back inside the walls, wont be more than two minutes."

Marcus let go of his earpiece and walked outside of the labs waiting for the King Ravens to return. They finally arrived and set down on the pads, the COG soldiers carrying full tanks of Imulsion towards the lab doors. Marcus waited for the pilot to exit. When he did, he was carrying some weird looking crate with him.

'What the hell is that?" The pilot stood up and opened the crate. "It's some kind of storage container, it has Imulsion lining the inside, like it was sitting inside. We took a better look at it, and it's made of some kind of synthetic lead like the kind used to protect against nuclear radiation" Marcus looked the rate over then looked back at the pilot. "So, why is this bad news?" The pilot swallowed and pointed to it. "Turn it over sergeant."

Marcus gave it a hard kick rolling it over and what eh saw on the bottom, almost made him flare into a white hot rage. On the bottom printed in thick but faded red letters, it read, "A. Fenix"

Anya felt like she was going to throw up while Marcus just stared at the crate. He didn't want to believe it but now he had to. His father, Adam Fenix, who gave his life to save Sera, was responsible for this new Imulsion.

"No! damnit no!" Anya jumped in fright as Marcus yelled out kicking the crate as it slid into the Raven's side making a loud pinging noise. "That son of a bitch, he knew this Imulsion was still there, why didn't he tell us?! How the hell did it end up here?!" Neither Anya or the pilot had a good answer for Marcus they just tried to keep their distance at this point.

All of their radios buzzed as voices called out through them. " Command we've got a problem, the wolves are back, but they brought reinforcements." Before anyone could reply they all heard what sounded like a howl and a tigers roar come from the radios then nothing but gunfire.

"Let's go, now!" Marcus and Anya hauled themselves onto the Raven with more COG soldiers as it headed for the woods. He would worry about his father's project later, right now, they had to deal with the problem of Imulsion fueled super beasts.

Marcus could see the wolves advancing on the hillside but the COG were holding their position. Before setting down he caught sight of something huge moving through the woods, breaking down smaller trees as it walked. When ti finally emerged none of them could tell if it was one of the wolves, or something completely different, but whatever it was, it had to die. "Shit."


	3. Chapter 3

Upon landing Marcus jumped out of the Raven and joined a line of COG fighting off the smaller wolves. "Sergeant Fenix what the hell are these things?" "I don't know, just kill them before they can get to the farms!" Marcus opened fire on the closest wolf to him, bullets tearing it's body to pieces.

Everyone could hear the roars of whatever massive beast was on its way through the woods but for now they had to take care of the smaller and more important issue at hand, which were the hordes of wolves spewing out of the forest.

The COG soldiers unloaded clip after clip into the relentless animals before they came to a sudden halt, sitting down at the forests edge. It was silent for only a moment before another roar was heard, and the monster finally showed itself, taking down the last few trees in it's way underneath it's feet.

It looked like the wolves except it's fur was mangled and completely white, and all of it's teeth had become like giant barbed fangs. It's eyes glowed the color of Imulsion, and every time it breathed, a small cloud of the fuel escaped it's mouth.

No one wasted anytime at trying to attack it but the bullets didn't seem to do much besides make it angrier than it already was. As it walked forward, a few Gears managed to get some shots into it's eye. The monster wailed in pain and in it's rage, began spewing Imulsion from it's mouth. Everyone was able to escape the stream as they watched it collide with the ground and sizzle into the dirt. "Fuck this freak of nature. KR-13 and KR-14 we need heavier fire power!" "We hear your sergeant."

After a few seconds the King Ravens had made an about-face and two gunners stepped up to the fully loaded machine guns resting on the decks. They began firing at the beast, aiming for it's eyes and nose, assuming they could take out two of it's major senses.

To Marcus's surprise the guns actually had an effect on it this time. Plenty of shots landed in it's eyes and down on it's nose, tearing the flesh off of it like it was just sitting there ready to be peeled away. Chunks of it's flesh landed on the ground at it's feet as it wailed and roared trying to avoid the rapid gun fire. The rest of the COG took the opportunity to open fire once again on the smaller packs, which were caught by surprise and either died on the spot or retreated into the forest.

When the firing finally stopped, all that was left of the beast was a heaping pile of decaying flesh, Imulsion leaking from it's innards. Marcus stepped up to look around it's corpse. "How did this thing of from looking like hell on Sera, to being a pile of shit with just some machine gun fire? We couldn't do this to a Brumak if we tried."

He reached out to touch the big meat slab, and when he reached it, it crumbled away like dust. He pressed a finger to his radio. "Hoffman, send some scientists out here and see if we can collect some of this crap before it turns to dust in the damn wind." Hoffman replied halfway across the battlefield. "Already on it, more than half the smaller one's have completely disintegrated."

Marcus found Anya close to the Raven's when they landed again and began shipping Gears back to the city. They were the last to be picked up as they climbed inside and Anya took a seat next to Marcus. She looked up at him and sighed leaning into him. "Marcus are you ok? I mean the crate, and the wolves, and..." Marcus sighed too and stared out of the Raven at the forest. "I don't know Anya."

She figured that was the best she was going to get for now so for the rest of the ride she let it go. When they landed Marcus and Anya joined Hoffman and the rest of Delta Squad. Baird was the first to speak looking at another tooth he had stolen. "Well fuck, Locust, Lambent, now we got savage wolves with glowing eyeballs. Life doesn't get much better than this." Hoffman looked to Marcus who had grabbed the Imulsion crate when he landed. "What's that?" Marcus looked to everyone before tossing the crate top down into the dirt. They looked like they were in shock when they saw the name printed on the bottom.

Cole looked to Marcus who was giving the crate a death stare. "Oh shit baby... that can't be, there's no way your dad would..." "You can see it Gus, you all can." Baird knelt down and looked inside the crate." Shit this thing is caked with Imulsion, why was your father keeping this shit? And why wasn't it destroyed?"

"That crate has a lead lining, probably protected it from my dads weapon." "But what the hell could he want with more Imulsion, I mean he used some on himself but that Imulsion was destroyed." Hoffman listened to his radio then looked at Marcus. "Were sending a crew to your dads old lab, if there's anything left of it, they might find the reason your dad made this stuff, or they might find even more of it."

Marcus just nodded and began walking towards the hotel with the others behind him. Cole let out a big yawn. "Damn I don't know about you but im tired as all hell, think im gonna turn in early. I'll see you all in the morning, maybe find more wolves to stomp out" Baird agreed as they went up to their homes.

Marcus stayed in the lobby watching a few more cases of Imulsion being moved outside. Anya drew his attention away and made him walk upstairs to their apartment. "Marcus listen, I cant imagine whats going through your head. But tomorrow we'll have more answers." He went inside taking off his armor as he went. "Yeah."

He looked out the window and could see a lot of the Gears heading to their homes for the night. Unlike in the past night actually meant rest instead of sleeping for an hour, chugging coffee, and going back to work.

The only ones still busy were the people in the labs working with his fathers new Imulsion. Anya had to use all of her strength just to pry him away from the window to sit on the bed. "Im not sleeping Anya." She didn't respond she just sat next to him.

"Trust me I wouldn't expect you to, I just don't want you jumping out that window if you see one of the scientists coming towards the hotel." She hoped that make him smile even the slightest but it didn't. Hoffman eventually called Marcus down to his office in the lobby, Anya decided to stay behind and get some sleep.

He walked in and shut the door sitting down in front of Hoffman's desk. "Quite a night huh? Some kind of mutant Imulsion, and big glowing eye wolves." "Yeah." Hoffman sat up and looked at Marcus. "So whats first, your dad, the Imulsion, or the wolves?" 'All three." Hoffman sighed and leaned back again.

"The King Ravens are on there way back from your dads lab, or what is left of it, but they cant maintain a good radio signal so we'll have to wait until they land."

"Im sick of waiting, that's all we do anymore is wait." "Deal with it Marcus, we all have to."

"With any luck they found something that will tell us why your father made this new Imulsion, and if we can use it, or it needs to be destroyed like the rest of it was." "Baird can probably use it as fuel or maybe change it back to the way it was so we can use it. Fuel is something were having a hard time finding in case you forgot." "No one has forgotten Marcus."

"So, whats your theory anyways, about your father?" "I don't have a damn clue. I didn't even know he had that weapon, let alone mutant Imulsion." 'What about the wolves?" "Same thing as the Locust, it got in them and infected them, except they go down way easier than the Locust ever did."

"Don't stab me for this Marcus, but your dad is one fucked up scientists, pardon my french." Marcus just grunted in agreement. "Not a damn thing he's ever done has made any sense to the Locust or us."

"You don't think I know that?" Marcus and Hoffman both looked to the radio on his desk as a voice broke the silence. "Hoffman we finally made it back into the damn radio range, were about five minutes out from the walls." "Did you find anything at Fenix's lab?" "We found plenty, turned out he had alto of files sealed away under the lab itself."

"Good, get back here and bring it all to me, Marcus and I will go through it. Get a hold of Baird while your at it, he might as well help." Hoffman let go of the button and looked at Marcus. "Moment of truth time eh?" Marcus sighed and looked outside." Great."

Once Baird found his way to Hoffman's office the Ravens had returned and were bring box after box of old file boxes and computer parts inside. Baird hovered over the computer parts with a smirk. "Damn what did you boys bring me? Is it my damn birthday already?"

"Depends, did Sam have sex with you willingly last night or did you have to beg again?" Baird was too distracted by the technology heap to respond to Marcus. He started digging through the pile as Hoffman grabbed some old files and tossing them aside if they weren't what he was looking for.

Baird looked over to them as he grabbed an old monitor. "So what the hell are we looking for?" "anything that tells us about Adam's research, if anything in that pile turns on it has files on it Baird, you better damn well look through it." "Please, you don't need tell me twice about playing with computers."

After an hour or so Baird finally got one of the older ones to turn on and began going through a smaller box of old data discs and popped them in one at a time to see if they had anything valuable. He set another one aside and looked up. "Find anything yet?" Marcus set another file down. "Nothing we don't already know." Baird sighed and put in another disc. "How do we even know we'll find anything?" "We don't Baird, keep looking."

"Marcus I appreciate the hate you have for your father right now, but there's no guarantee he even put anything about the Imulsion in here."

Marcus sighed going through anther box. "Damnit Hoffman I cant believe sat behind a desk and did this shit for years." "You get used to it, but I wish I hadn't. I miss being out there on the battlefield."

"Not much of a battlefield left until those damn wolves showed up." "Fuck those things, there making us waste ammo that we don't have and fuel we cant find."

"At least not until I get my hands on that Imulsion, I can get anything to work remember? Including Imulsion." Another hour of searching, Baird called Hoffman and Marcus over. "Hey move your asses I found something." They both got up and stood behind Baird who was putting in a much older looking data disc as a video screen popped up.

Adam Fenix stood on the screen alone, in his laboratory that used to be. "Hello, if you are watching this, then I my weapon was successful and the Locust have been destroyed."

All three of them watched closely as Adam moved the camera over to show an animal tank housing a wolf and a table covered with different test tubes and syringes. "Even if my weapon works, Sera will not be safe. While the threat of the Locust may be gone, that wont stop other groups like the Stranded and even my fellow Gears from taking Sera for themselves."

He walked closer to the animal tank as the wolf barked and tried to ram it's head into Adam only hitting the side of the cage. "While we strive to find ways to get our cities up and running, the wildlife of Sera will also struggle to rebuild itself." Next he went to the table and looked over each syringe before taking one.

"You may recognize this substance as Imulsion. Not only do we use it for fuel but it can be injected into living organisms such as the Locust, or even this wolf. Once inside the organism, Imulsion begins to mutate and change the very cells inside it. After seeing what it had done to humans and Locust alike, I became curious what it would do to the animals that inhabit Sera. I captured this wolf and have been developing the Imulsion into different forms to see what will happen upon injection."

After finding the correct syringe, Adam approached the wolf as it snarled at him through the barrier between them. "This is the first time I will test my new Imulsion on this animal." Adam opened the top of the box and when the wolf tried to leap out he quickly jabbed the needle into it's neck and pressed down on the plunger. In mere seconds the wolf dropped back inside looking tired as Adam closed the lid and locked it again.

"With any luck, my new Imulsion will strengthen the wolf's cell's. Which will make it stronger and faster, giving a better chance of survival in the few forests that are left on Sera." After a few minutes of waiting, the wold suddenly sprang up. It's shape had changed to more of a muscular build and the size of it's canines had increased too.

"It appears that my theory was correct, this wolf's psychical structure has changed to be more suitable for survival and-" Adam was cut short by a loud popping noise as the wolf's body began to fall apart right in front of him. The camera feed suddenly cut off and came back on with a caption reading a few days ahead of the original.

"Unfortunately a few days ago my first experiment was unsuccessful, the wolf didn't react to the Imulsion as i had hoped, but after more testing I have created a second type of Imulsion that should work over the first."

He took the new syringe and did the same as he had before with the first wolf. This time the change took longer but the wolf appeared to be better. The camera quickly changed view again and now Adam was outside amongst some broken buildings, he also had the wolf with him.

"I am now going to test the wolf's new speed and strength." Adam pressed a button on the controller in his hand which opened a cage as a smaller wolf came out to face the larger one. The two immediately began fighting, the larger wolf being much faster and stronger easily killed the lesser one.

He repeated this test three more times, but on the final wolf, the smaller one caught a good hold of the larger one's leg and it came right off like it were made of paper. Adam quickly grabbed a Snub he kept with him and shot both the mutated wolf and the normal one before the camera cut off.

When it came back on he was back in the laboratory with a handful of wolves this time. "I've come upon a running problem in my experiments. Each batch of Imulsion makes the wolves stronger and stronger, but their bodies become brittle and weak upon being attacked."

Walking over to the table again he angled to camera to show stacks of papers and blue-prints. "It seems no matter what I do to this Imulsion, the weakness it creates inside their bodies cannot be countered. But I have one experiment to perform that I believe will solve this problem. I don't have the time to test it in person so I am sending a large crate filled with Imulsion to the forest located just outside of Porra."

He turned the camera to show the crate itself filled with Imulsion. "Upon using my counter weapon, all Imulsion on Sera will be gone, but I have designed these crates to protect this Imulsion from the nuclear energy of it." After closing the crate and putting what looked like I timer locker on it he went back to his table. "I'm confident that this Imulsion within the crate's will resolve the issue with the wolves bodies and finally give them everything they need to defend the forests of Sera until they have been rebuilt." A digital map came into view on the screen as points on it began to light up.

"I will send a crate to each forest on Sera that has been marked on this map, and upon my death, the special timed locks will break, releasing the Imulsion into the forest where the wolves can consume it. To make sure no other animal takes it, I have also given the crates small pockets of pheromones that only the wolves themselves will be attracted to."

"Im giving every living organism on Sera a chance to make a comeback. Marcus if you are the one to see this message, im sorry for everything my son, but with this Imulsion, I will make everything right again." The video cut off for the last time and the disc popped out of the slot in the computer as Baird took it.

After a very long pause he sighed and looked at the disc. "Well shit Marcus... your dad killed the Locust, but he gave us another fucking problem." Marcus couldn't decide whether to be angry at his father, or become worried about all of the Imulsion that was now loose on Sera.

"He said every forest, what the hell happens if other people find this shit instead of wolves." Baird shook his head and looked at Marcus. "There's no telling what this new stuff will do to humans, the old Imulsion just made them into zombies. For all we know this new kind could do something even worse."

Marcus looked at the computer and raged suddenly consumed him as he plowed his giant boot into the screen, sending plastic and glass everywhere. "What the fuck Marcus?!" Baird looked at the shattered machine as he picked up a piece of the screen.

Anya had just come down to see Marcus when she walked in on the scene and stopped in the doorway. "Baird what the hell happened?" None of them said anything as Marcus took the data disc from the desk and looked at Anya.

"It was him Anya, he made the Imulsion, he released it in every forest on Sera." Anya stared wide-eyed at Marcus for a minute. "No... no he couldn't have, why would he do that?!"

They played the disc as Anya watched horrified. She almost lost it when Adam shot the wolves. After it ended she watched the screen unable to speak. Baird quickly moved the computer, hoping Marcus wouldn't murder another innocent machine today.

"This is unbelievable. Marcus we have to show this to everyone, we have to find those crates and get rid of the Imulsion!" " I know." Marcus took the disc and headed outside of the hotel with the others behind him. He headed into the labs as one of the scientists caught him. "Oh Sergeant Fenix im glad I found you. We have news about the Imulsion that you need to know."

Marcus followed her to a table with several microscopes, and she pointed to the middle one. "After we saw the wolves dying so quickly we wanted to understand why, upon looking at the Imulsion after the wolves died we found that the ashes it left behind still had living cells in it."

He looked into the lens and stood back-up. 'So, what does that mean?" "It means after a few hours, the cells within the ashes will regenerate and multiply, bringing the wolves back to life again." Baird growled in the back of his throat. "So your saying these things cant die?!" "No no they can be killed permanently, but it takes a massive heat source to kill the cells forever."

Marcus's head snapped up. "We left all those ashes out by the farms, how long ago?" One of the other scientists checked the time from the Gears return. "based on our information, the wolves will regenerate in fifteen minutes."

"Shit. We need to get flamethrower unites out there now before they have the chance to get back up!" Hoffman didn't need to hear it twice as he began barking orders into his earpiece. Anya and Marcus went up to their apartment gearing up in their armor and getting their Lancers. "Go meet Sam and Cole, I need to get something else." She nodded and rushed out and down the stairs.

Marcus opened the top drawer of their dresser and took out his father's COG tags. He stared at them for a few seconds before dropping them onto the floor and planted his massive boot on top of them, crushing the metal into a broken heap.

"Don't worry dad, i'll fix your fucking problems, again." Marcus left the apartment, Lancer in hand, leaving behind all respect, dignity, and feeling he had ever felt for his father.


End file.
